NEWS

I keep saying that I’ll spend my whole 30’s trying and that in my 40’s I’ll be able to be a mother. Did I want it that way? No, but it wasn’t something like I didn’t know that I always wanted to be a mom the way that some people do. I know that family has always been really important to me. Then it was just the weirdest thing—I was driving to a vineyard and it just came out of nowhere. I was like 31, 32. I just had such a pull to motherhood. At the time, the relationship that I was in it was something that I was going to pursue, but it wasn’t happening, and I wasn’t getting pregnant. There was this constant toggle of; I always wrestled with, “Maybe I wasn’t meant to be a mother. Maybe this isn’t something that is supposed to happen for me.” Do I kind of like not really pursue it? I’ve never really been really competitive or really ‘go after things kind of person’, I’ve really been like let things come to me, not to shake things up, I definitely don’t like to insist on things. This is like this thing that I had to insist on. I kept thinking that maybe it would go away or something. I just thought, “Well, maybe this will go away”. It landed in my lap out of nowhere, so maybe it’ll just like—poof!—go. Then, it didn’t. I went through this phase and thought is it like a boyfriend where like you want to go out on a date and he’s not interested in you, it made you want it even more. Then I just went through this phase, “Well maybe I just really want it because I can’t have it! What is happening?”

Then through time I realized that I wanted a family of my own, however that was going to be. I stayed with that and in that, the relationship that I was in didn’t continue because I think family for that person was really more, if it happens, it happens kind of thing. By the time that I was 35, I realized that this was something that I really needed to start pursuing. So, it forced me to insist on it, to go after it which was so hard because that’s just different for me, it’s not something that I do. You’re full of so much self-doubt: “Do I do this? Is this not supposed to happen? This isn’t happening to anyone else around me, what do I do?

Then, the relationship that I’m in now, I was very up front with in my marriage. I said, “I don’t think that this is going to be easy for the past three or four years, hasn’t been easy.” At that point, I had such clarity, I knew what I would do and I knew what treatments that I’d do and how far I would go. That was huge because I didn’t’ know that before but having end that relationship, it just suddenly gave me clarity to do that and I knew. Thank God he was like, “I’m on board.” Really, the past three years we’ve been through so much and it’s just been nuts. It’s just been one thing after another. So, pretty intense the last three or four years. I was really hoping that by 40, I’d at least have 1, but it hasn’t happened yet. Then I was like, “Well, maybe the year I am 40, it’ll happen. This ten-year time span will end and I can just move onto the next 10-20 years at a very different place not chasing. It’s different now because I know what I want, I do. Whether or not that ends up happening to me, I have an actual plan where as in the beginning; it’s just kind of this murky, messy thing. You don’t really know what to do, you don’t know what’s available, and you don’t know how far you will go. You’re like, “I don’t have the money for this, and I will stop at that.” It just keeps chasing with every experience that happens to you, it just changes what it will do next. You start agreeing to things that you didn’t think that you would do, but now it just makes sense to you. You have to have gone through that to get to where you are at now.

I think I learned, I’m stronger than I thought I was. I think I’ve learned patience, and I learned how to be an advocate for yourself. If something isn’t working or the even place that you’re currently getting your treatment at isn’t working, but you think maybe I can just put up with this or go through this, or yes, I know no one is really listening to me, I want to go this way. Maybe next time, I’ll just get pregnant and I won’t have to deal with this anymore, and I can just go on the road of motherhood. There comes a point wherever you are for some people, if it’s within the first year or who knows when, for me it was longer until I was finally like, “OK, new game plan. I need to move where I’m getting my treatments done. I need to switch what I’m doing. I need to be around different people. I need to just get this thing together.” You do, have to have more choice in what treatments you have, or what it is you’re going to pursue; whether it’s the healing arts program or just being educated to help you make better choices”. There’s a ton out of your control, but there’s a lot that you can do to put yourself in the best position mentally and physically for it. I resolved to be a mother and I don’t think that I knew that in the beginning. I think that I thought that maybe it wouldn’t be, but I understand it now. I understand why I understand that’s where I’m going.

I feel like having the western part and the eastern part combined helps me feel like everybody is on the same page and that everybody is sort of looking at you as a whole. Physically, I’ve noticed changes just in being able to regulate what my body does and help me feel more relaxed as you go through the processes. The Maya massage is something that Erin (McCollough) and I will joke around about, “You have a lot of experience with Maya massage” because it’s just very nourishing for me. Acupuncture has just been wonderful in just regulating my cycle and everything that I do. Because physically you feel more grounded and taken care of and emotionally you feel better. You feel like you can face the next thing coming your way. They work in conjunction with one another to help make you feel better.

I had just been through, at that point, my 3rd miscarriage; I had just felt somewhat together again that morning, and being pregnant and miscarrying three times in one year, I look back and either I was getting over a loss, or I was getting pregnant. What you feel the first few weeks you’re pregnant, and then you lose again, and then you have to wait. Then you start again. It was around May, I was able to wake up again. It was a beautiful morning. It was like this beautiful, sunny, crystal morning. I was driving to work and it was a warm day. I’m singing for the first time to my radio to whatever I had on the iPod. I was like, “Ah! I’m singing again!” I was in my car, I’m singing again, I woke up, I showered, the hair is blow-dried, and I have my coffee! Like I am normal again! This is what I’m doing. Everybody else on 390 is doing this, I am with the pack again, and going to work with my wits about me. I’m driving to work and here’s the crazy thing—I love deer. I grew up with deer in our backyard in the woods and what not. My dad and I were always like, “Oh the deer, they are so beautiful, and they’re so angelic, blah, blah, blah!” I make little sock deer; it’s crazy. All of a sudden, I was driving and I’m singing, and I swear to God, out of the earth comes this deer and she pops up, jumps over the bridge, and I see it and I was like, “Oh my God! I’m going to hit this deer this morning on the first nice morning, with my stupid Starbucks! I just started signing. What do you mean? Where did you come from?” It’s in front of the car and I put my brakes on. I think I just nicked it. It jumped over the bridge, and into the stream. There’s this crazy splash, it jumps out, and over the hood, and takes off into the field.

Of course, I start crying and it’s not even deer season. Where did this thing come from? I was like, “Why me? Why, why, why? Why today? Why would this happen?” So, I had my pity party for a few minutes. I thought about that for a little bit. That is the world of infertility, there’s no deer season. You think that there are these signs: yield, stop, deer crossing, children crossing. They don’t necessarily cross there. Deer season doesn’t usually happen from October to whatever deer season is supposed to be; they can come out in the middle of May, and that’s the way it goes. You can’t plan. That’s the hardest thing to let go of and that is OK. There’s so much you can do for yourself, to take care of yourself. There’s so much that’s truly out of your control, and you have to figure out a way to let it go where you’re just chasing it, chasing it, and kind of making yourself crazy.